I was grimly amused once, a long time ago now (1985), when my Nigerian co-pilot was expressing enthusiasm for 'IBB,' General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the military strong man who was going to sort out political corruption, put Nigeria back on the straight and narrow and restore democracy, all at the point of a gun. This young man didn't seem to see the paradox in a man who had just overthrown an elected president (well, 'elected' in the same way that 'democracy' in Africa relates to democracy as it is generally known) discovering a great enthusiasm for what he had just destroyed.
We all know how that one worked out. For anyone who hasn't been paying attention, IBB ended up insanely rich, lots of people who opposed him ended up dead, and instead of democracy his legacy was misrule by a thuggish, homicidal dwarf in Michael Jackson signature model Ray-Bans, General Sani Abacha.
IBB had a sort of benign image, always shown with an expression of firm resolve or dull amiability in his press photos, where Abacha always looked as if he ate babies for breakfast. The corpses were piling up at an alarming rate as Abacha prepared to become yet another African 'President for Life.' We were seeing these distinctly odd posters from YEAA (Youths Earnestly Asking Abacha... to become President for Life) when the whole farce was abruptly terminated by his death.
Here and now, some crowd of gun thugs calling themselves MEND are expected to improve the situation in the Niger Delta? Nigerians, ever enterprising have obviously decided to cut out the political middlemen and get their money directly from the oil companies!
My guess is that, bad as things are, they shall go further down before any significant improvement comes. I always did have a gloomy and cynical cast of mind, though. On the other hand, pretty much everything I thought would happen did happen so that betting on things getting better any time soon might not be the way to go.
A really big problem is that the oil majors operate to straight capitalist logic, when they ignore local conditions to the maximum extent possible in the pursuit of returns for their stockholders. It is often so that the black stuff is under real estate owned and run by rather nasty characters who don't even pretend to care about the poor peasants who are forced to live on it.
Shell, for example, is not in the business of providing primary health care, clean water, schooling, infrastructure, etc., etc. Hey, a big chunk of what they earn already goes to the Nigerian government, who are expected to look after their citizens in that way! The politicians are sequestered in Abuja, though, and 'Shell' is on the ground in the Delta. That can come down to the individual expatriate who is now going to carry the can for this long chain of ignorance and misrule. All I can say is, 'Better you than me.'
Two books worth reading for some deep background are 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Things Fall Apart.' 'Soza Boy' and the recent 'Half a Yellow Sun' are both interesting glimpses of some of what went on during the Biafra War. Think of these as a sort of expanded checklist, if you like!